Modular Sandpaper Organizer Cabinet

Introduction: Modular Sandpaper Organizer Cabinet

In this Instructable, I'll show you how I made this Modular Sandpaper Organizer Cabinet. Hope you find some inspiration to make your own!

Be sure to watch the Video above that goes side by side with this article and Subscribe to my YouTube Channel for upcoming projects!

I build this storage cabinet to organize the sandpaper and different things that I use for sanding. It also holds the random orbit sander on the top. Its made from 12mm birch plywood with rabbet and dado joinery. no screws, dowels or nails needed to build this.

Step 2: Cut Your Pieces to Size

I have started to lay out the stuff I wanted to put in the organizer to get a better understanding what the height, depth, and width is for each sanding related item to get the maximum use out of the cabinet. I include a removable middle divider.

I cut all the pieces for the cabinet from 12mm plywood including the back piece. I left the two side pieces in one larger piece so the slots and the joinery would come out exactly the same in both pieces.

Although I used a table saw for most of the build but, you surely can make this with just a circular saw and a straight guide to cut the pieces, cut the rabbets and slots for the shelves.

Step 3: Joinery and Shelve Slides

Now that every plywood piece is cut to size, you can go on with the joinery. Cut the Dado's and rabbets on the side piece for the top, bottom, and the back with several passes thru the blade, always test with a scrap piece of the same plywood for a tight joint.

I decided to place the Sandpaper sheats on the lower half of the cabinet so I cut 4 slots for the shelves in 12mm spaces. The rest of the cabinet is divided into 25mm spaces.

After all the cuts were made you can cut apart the two sides.

The top and the middle shelf also get a dado to receive the removable divider. this slot is 24mm wide you see the reason for that in the next step.

Step 4: The Removable Divider

The groves for the sliding shelves are 6mm deep, and when I realized that I can't cut 6mm from both sides on a 12mm thick material ( duh) I decided to glue 2 pieces of 12mm thick panels together.

After gluing and trimming all the sides of the divider I cut the grooves for the shelves with a distance from 25mm to each other like I did on the sides.

Step 5: Assembling the Cabinet

Use some wood glue on all the dado's and rabbets of the side pieces and put in the top, bottom, and the middle shelf. Make sure you don't put any glue on the top and middle shelf where you cut the 25mm dado for the removable divider so it can be that what its name is!

Glue on the back piece of the cabinet but be careful when you apply the glue that it doesn't get in the small grooves where the hardboard shelves go.

I didn't use any screws or nails to hold this cabinet together just wood glue and some clamps.

You surely can use only screws and Glue for the joinery to avoid the dados and rabbets.

After the glue has dried I sanded the box to p180 grit with my random orbit sander and applied two coats of Water-based poly.

Step 6: Making the Pull Out Shelves

After the cabinet has been assembled you can measure the exact dimensions of the hardboard shelves and cut them to size.

My sanding discs for the random orbit sander are 125mm wide so I glued on some stops with CA Glue (superglue) to ensure the discs don't slide all the way to the back.

For the sanding sheet shelves (say that 3x fast), i used a Forster bit to bore a half hole that makes it easier to pull out the shelve.

Step 7: Enjoy Your Organized Shop!

I hope you enjoyed this article and found some inspiration to make your own and if you want to see more great projects you can subscribe my YouTube Channel too! If you liked this project please Vote for it! Thank you very much!

Please make sure you watched the video build to get a better understanding the entire process, and it also helps me out to make more of these projects!

Very nice project. Something I've been wanting to find. But a word of caution from experience, stand to the left of the saw when using a rip fence. If you have ever had a kick back in the gut it is no fun for days. Also try a small stop block on the side of your rip fence then you will not get a bind and possibly prevent a kick back. Keep cutting you do great work

Love your humor Duh in step 4 and step 5 Removable created a piece of fire wood for me yesterday. It only took about 20 minutes too and I couldn't get the glue to let go so I could salvage my shelf. I think I'll try your design and attach french cleats cuz my sand paper is a disastrous mess.